How to Enjoy the Holidays + Stick to Your Fitness Goals (at the same time!)
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How do you currently approach fitness during the holiday season? What challenges do you face?
Welcome to this episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast, where we explore how to enjoy the holiday season without compromising your fitness goals. As the holiday season unfolds, the dilemma between staying on track with fitness goals and indulging in festive treats can be real. So, stay tuned to learn practical tips that form the bedrock of a healthy and joyous holiday season!
What I discuss:
Count your macros.
Start resistance training ASAP (or keep it up!)
Don’t be in a “fat loss” phase of macro counting.
If you want more from me, be sure to check out...
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Macro Counting Made Simple Online Academy: https://www.macrocountingmadesimple.com/
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Get my eBook: FREE Macro Counting Ebook
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real with Me, Julie Ledbetter. A podcast where I empower you to just be you with each episode and issue a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned. If you're ready to embrace your real, let's get hands, girl. [00:00:21][21.1]
[00:00:26] Hello and welcome to another episode on the Embrace Your Real podcast. Here's this season. It is that time of year to enjoy lots and lots of food and holiday parties and holiday treats and the sights and the sounds and the smells and all of the thing. If you know me, you know I am all about enjoying life and I'm also all about not giving up your favorite things just for the sake of building the body that you want. And that's because you truly can build the body that you want while enjoying your life, especially during the holiday season. [00:00:57][31.5]
[00:00:58] And so that's why in today's episode, I want to dive into how to stay on track during the holidays so that you can be mindful of your fitness goals, even while enjoying all of it. But before we dive in, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Haile Craze. She gave a five star review and said, Love this, This podcast is amazing. It is just what I was looking for. It's so informative and encouraging. I also love how open and real Julie is. I definitely recommend. I love this so much. Thank you so much. Hail crazy. You are amazing. [00:01:28][30.3]
[00:01:29] All of you guys who are taking time to send in these reviews really genuinely means the world to me and our team just kind of know how the podcast is helping you. If a specific episode helped you or spoke to you, I would love to know. It is one of my greatest joys on a weekly basis is to connect with you guys and be able to share these episodes with you and kind of long content form. That's how I feel like I work best simply because I am a talker and I love just connecting with people and I feel like you can't really genuinely get a good connection with someone unless you talk to them for a good amount of time, right? I mean, you can get get down and dirty really fast when it comes to like a deep conversation. But the majority of times the best conversations I have found just take time and spending time together. And so, so grateful that you guys spend time with me on a weekly basis. I love you all so much. [00:02:18][49.4]
[00:02:19] Let's dive into today's episode, How to enjoy the holidays and stick to your fitness goals at the same time. Number one, if you've been following me for any length of time, you probably guess I would say this, but I'm going to encourage you to properly feel your body by utilizing the 12 macro counting. So you've probably heard me say it a thousand times, but let's be real. If you want to stay on track while enjoying the holiday season, counting your macros is going to be one of the best tools for you to utilize, and it's at your disposal any time that you need it. Like you can literally have your cake and eat it too. [00:02:50][31.6]
[00:02:51] With macro counting, you can eat your Christmas cookies daily if you want and still improve your body composition. This is because macro counting gives you the parameters to work within, right? So you have X amount of carbs to eat and it's up to you how you want to spend your carbs. So if you want to spend them on rice and oatmeal, you can if you want to spend them on Christmas cookies and other day you totally can. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. What matters is that you don't overindulge on a regular basis and go over your allotted carbs for the day. Right? Knowing the macronutrient breakdown of holiday treats empowers you to make these choices that align with your fitness goal. Again, it's like having your cake and eating it and not feeling guilty about it later. So when you're faced with, you know, a table full of holiday treats, you can make these informed decisions like a scoop of mashed potatoes, a slice of turkey. Yes, you can even have that pie. And it can all be within your nutritional realm and your nutritional count on a daily basis. [00:03:52][60.9]
[00:03:52] It's all about the balance and knowing kind of where to sprinkle in your macros and just overall creating that balanced approach to building your plate. I know I talk a lot about making macro counting a lifestyle, but it really it doesn't have to be like it doesn't have to be that you have to make it a lifestyle. So many women that simply use it, they use it situationally like during the holidays or simply during times where they can't seem to stay consistent. It's like a tool in your toolbox that you can always have at your disposal. [00:04:22][29.3]
[00:04:22] And this is going to shift from person to person. Some people, they just know intuitively how to balance a plate. They know what makes them feel best. They're getting enough protein and they're feeling energized. They're able to see results and their health and fitness goals. And so for them, they don't feel like they need to strictly count macros for other people. Like I said, situationally, it can be very beneficial for them to know and just have that tool in their toolbox at their disposal. So if you want to learn more about this, I do have a program. I will link it in the show notes, but at the end of the day, just know that there are so many different approaches to macro counting. [00:04:56][33.9]
[00:04:57] Whether this is something that you're using for different parts of the year or maybe you're like, Hey, I like using it all days of the year. Like I just find that I am much more consistent when I know how to properly feel my body and am intentional about that. There's other people that it stresses them out to count all three macronutrients. If that's you. There are so many other approaches. You can count your protein and just be intentional about making sure that you're eating enough protein. You can count your protein and your overall calories. You can count, you know, just your. Overall calories, you know, kind of have your carbs and fats be kind of interchangeable when it comes within within your calorie range? I mean, there are so many different ways and approaches to it. [00:05:35][37.9]
[00:05:35] So find what works best for you and stick with that. [00:05:38][3.0]
[00:05:38] Number two start resistance training ASAP. Or if you have already been resistant training, keep it up. So resistance training actually helps your body process the less nutrient dense foods better. And here's why. Because muscle tissue is more metabolically active than fat tissue, meaning that it burns more calories at rest. And this means that people that have a more higher muscle mass, they tend to have a higher metabolism that can burn off more calories from, quote, unhealthy foods, for lack of a better term. It also can help to improve your insulin sensitivity. [00:06:09][31.2]
[00:06:10] So insulin is actually a hormone that helps your body use glucose, which is just essentially sugar for energy. So when your body is resistant to insulin, it doesn't use the glucose as effectively, which can lead to a high blood sugar levels and other health problems. But resistance training can really help to improve your insulin sensitivity, which can make your body better to handle the sugar from the less nutrient dense foods. Also, resistance training can really help to reduce inflammation, which is, you know, bloating that can be triggered by eating these less nutrient dense foods. Why? Well, again, because it makes your body more resilient to the damage caused by these foods, you know, processed foods, sugary foods, etc.. And at the same time, resistance training can also help you make better food choices overall, like when you feel strong and confident in your body, you're more likely going to want to eat foods that help you reach your fitness goals, that help you continue to feel good and confident in your body. [00:07:05][55.1]
[00:07:05] So in this case of the holiday season, it actually might make you crave less treats and keep more of a balanced approach to the holiday season. Not because you're forcing yourself to, but because your body naturally won't crave all the treats that it normally would crave, simply because you're staying in this routine and you're feeling good, you're feeling like you have energy. So if you haven't already joined movement with Julie app, and been following me for any length of time as well. You know that I am loving and have love for the last, oh gosh, almost six, 6 or 7 years now. dumbbell only workouts. I will forever be a dumbbell only girly. I love them and this genuinely my movement Julie app is going to be your best friend for working towards your fitness goals, especially while enjoying the holiday season. [00:07:49][43.7]
[00:07:49] If you don't have time to make it to and from the gym. If you are very limited on time in your workouts, like you only have 20 30 minutes to get a workout in, you know, three, four days a week, I've got a plan for you. My plan makes resistance training super simple and really fun. It's really unlike any workout you've done before. Kind of my motto is rethink your workouts. Like I want you to rethink that. You are able to get a killer workout in an short period of time. And the beautiful thing about my workouts, too, is that they're not high impact workouts. [00:08:20][30.5]
[00:08:20] I think oftentimes when you hear that you can get a great workout in, you know, in 20 or 30 minutes, you're thinking like hit still going to sweat every single workout like crazy. And if that's your jam, I will say my workouts are probably, well, you're still going to sweat a lot, but they're not high impact, they're low impact. So they're great on your joints. They're great on your bones. Every single workout has video demos. It is very, very friendly for you who, you know, only have very limited equipment. So all you need is a few pair of dumbbells and a small space if you have a bench. Amazing. But I always give no bench alternates. [00:08:56][35.3]
[00:08:57] I have a sale going on right now, so if you head over to sale, that's S-A-L-E dot movement with Julie dot com, You can check out the sale. You can either join monthly or annual. We love it. There's over 10,000 women who actively use the workouts on a weekly basis and they're seeing massive results. So again, by no means is resistance training like the magic bullet, but in conjunction with properly fueling your body through utilizing the 12 macro counting, you can definitely still enjoy the holidays while feeling good in your body. [00:09:24][27.9]
[00:09:25] Number three I am going to encourage you to not be in a fat loss phase during this season. There is no reason for you to be in a fat loss phase during the holiday season. Fat loss genuinely. It just essentially means that you're in a caloric deficit. So no, I would not recommend this. During the holiday season, you have 11 other months of the year. Why would you choose the month of, you know, treats and holiday parties just to be in this fat loss phase? [00:09:51][25.9]
[00:09:51] Instead, What I would encourage you to do is either enter into a maintenance phase or muscle gain phase during this time. So a maintenance phase is where you're just maintaining where you are now. And if I'm being honest, that is one of the greatest approaches that I have just found to stay consistent during your holiday season. Shifting to a maintenance phase during the holidays is a great approach that allows for a more bit dietary flexibility, like it will allow you to consume more calories, especially if you've been in a caloric deficit, which will allow you to make room for some holiday indulgences. You know, you'll just you'll be. Able to stay focused on where you're at. And what I have found is that at maintenance mode, I just feel my best and I'm able to still and, you know, have amazing foods on a daily basis feel full, not feeling hungry at the end of the day, but able to still stay consistent. [00:10:43][51.6]
[00:10:43] Like transitioning to your maintenance doesn't mean that you're abandoning your goals. It's just a strategic pause that allows you to enjoy the holiday season while keeping your fitness journey on track. Plus, it's, you know, necessary. It's a necessary time to spend in maintenance every once in a while. You know, I always tell people like, you cannot live in a constant caloric deficit. It's just not healthy. Our bodies are not created for that. And so by going into this maintenance phase, it will help keep your metabolism stable, whereas, you know, a constant caloric deficit or for a prolonged periods of time, that's directly going to slow your metabolism down. So by adjusting your macros to kind of maintenance level, this will allow you to create a buffer to enjoy your favorite holiday treats without guilt or stress or derailing your progress. [00:11:28][44.3]
[00:11:28] Another option that I just mentioned that I kind of want to go into is the muscle building phase. So this is where you're going to want to kind of ramp up things a notch. So this phase really allows for more calories aiming to provide your body with the extra energy needed for muscle building because your body needs extra calories in order to successfully and most importantly, efficiently build muscle. It's like giving yourself a holiday tree, essentially like a gift that supports both your love for festive foods and fitness ambitions that you have. So by intentionally increasing your caloric intake, you are able to fuel your resistance training workouts, you're able to promote muscle growth and metabolic efficiency. So this phase, paired with consistent resistance training can really be a pathway to turning those extra holiday calories into muscle gain. But regardless of what phase you choose, it is so important to just be consistent with your resistance training. [00:12:23][54.1]
[00:12:23] These phases only work if you are consistent with your resistance training three times a week minimum. You know you really can't build muscle without putting your muscle to work. So if you're just eating these extra calories without putting your muscles to work, you're not going to see the muscle gain that you want, right? You're going to gain something else that you probably don't want to gain. And I also have to say that when you're in this muscle building phase, which is just another term for bulking, but I prefer the muscle building phase just because I think there's just a negative connotation with bulking. When you're intentional about your muscle building phase, just know that there are you, you will inevitably gain some fat during that time and that's okay. I think that's important for you to understand. And so the beautiful thing about that is that, you know, you will be able to go stronger into your caloric deficit when you go into that body fat loss phase, maybe at that's in the new year. [00:13:13][50.0]
[00:13:14] If you want to do this muscle building phase for a few months, maybe spring time for summer, you're going to be able to see some really kind of massive results if you are very intentional with this muscle building phase. So essentially, these are the three things that you need to know about really finding balance between your fitness goals and also enjoying the holidays. There are plenty of small tips and tricks that you can follow, but at the end of the day, this is really like the solid foundation that's going to bring you the best results and make it the easiest for you to navigate through the holiday season. So if you want to learn, if you're like, Man, I think I do want to be into this maintenance mode for the holidays or I want to, you know, maybe go into an intentional season of muscle building. I have an online academy. It's called the Macro counting Online Academy. And we will take your questionnaire form. [00:13:59][44.5]
[00:13:59] So based on what your information is, your goals, where you're at, we will say, okay, so you are right here and your goal is to be in maintenance. So this is going to be your maintenance macros or you're right here and your goal is to be in a muscle building phase. Just know, just like a body fat loss phase, you're going to have different macros sets and you're going to stay consistent with your macros set. And then in a muscle building phase, you're actually going to gain more calories from, you know, every few weeks as you move from set to set. Whereas if you're in a body fat loss phase, you're going to lessen calories from week to week as you go deeper into your body fat loss phase. But there's strategy to it. And that's why I really highly encourage that you if it's my plan or somebody else's plan, I don't care who you learn from, as long as you are learning the fundamentals. [00:14:43][43.9]
[00:14:43] That is what I care most about so that you can really feel empowered and educated through this process. And that's what our online academy does. Step by step, you know, we show you how we calculated it. We're not secretive. We're not just going to say, Oh, here's your numbers. We're not going to show you how we did it. Now we're going to show you how to do it and how we did it. And then also, you know, when and how to move from set to set. So again, if you want to learn more, you can head over to macro counting made simple.com that's macro counting made simple.com or you can find the link in the show notes. [00:15:13][29.9]
[00:15:14] So let me quickly recap what I talked about. The three things in today's episode. Number one, with utilizing the total macro counting, you can eat Christmas cookies daily and still improve your body composition. And this is. Because macro kind of gives you the parameters to work with and right you have X amount of carbs to eat daily and it's up to you as to how you want to spend those carbs on a day to day basis. Number to keep resistance training. Or if you haven't, start right now, start today, don't wait. It will keep your metabolism revving. It will help to decrease inflammation and bloating and allow your body to handle sugar more effectively and easily. And number three, don't even think about cutting calories during the holidays. Now is not the time. So whether that's maintenance mode or muscle building mode, I highly encourage you to go check those out. I do have my two programs that I talked about, so my double only weekly workout program. So I give you five brand new workouts every single week. There's a 60 minute or 30 minute version. So depending on your time constraints, they are go at your own pace. So it is not a follow along style, which I personally love because I love the flexibility, I love to listen to podcasts, I love to watch shows. Sometimes while working out you have that flexibility, but there are video demos, their silent looping video demos for every single moment so that you know exactly what you need to do. And I also give exercise modification. [00:16:35][81.3]
[00:16:36] So alternate exercises, if you need something like low impact or no bench or bodyweight or easier, I really try to make this an all inclusive program so that basically, you know, whatever your fitness level is, you can go into this program and succeed. There's vibrating workouts every week. You can do one workout, you can do all five, you can do three workouts a week. But I'm telling you that these workouts are super effective, super fun, and you will never get bored. And the second program that I talked about was my macro counting made simple online academy. So this is my program where I teach you step by step how we calculated your macros based on your questionnaire form and what your goals are. And then we show you, okay, here, we're kind of got guide you through that process of how you can start this journey. And it's going to be a comprehensive program, but we're going to do it in the most simple approach that you don't feel overwhelmed so you can learn more about those two programs. I will link both of those in the show notes, but that is all that I have for today's episode. [00:17:30][53.8]
[00:17:30] I hope that this was helpful. I hope that you found this somewhat educational or at the very least, just encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. If you are crushing the holiday season, you're feeling good, you're feeling energized, you're staying consistent with your workouts. That is ultimately what is most important is that you enjoy the holidays, but you also don't sacrifice all the hard work that you've been putting in throughout this year. I love you so much. I mean it and I'll talk to you next time. [00:17:58][28.0]
[00:10:38] All right, sister. That's all I got for you today. But I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram. Be sure to do so, Julie. A Ledbetter. Yes, it's with an A in the middle for that daily post workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcasts to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me. It means the absolute world. And I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace Israel because you're worth it. [00:10:38][0.0]
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